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At the end of a sensible essay on the topic of Trump’s immoral travel ban, we read

There is a place for prudent questions about security, but the responsibility of the nation-state is a minor concern compared to the responsibility of God’s people. Good citizens will hold both institutions accountable: We must ensure that the United States is just and secure, so that we can welcome as many people as is prudent and send out our very best to participate in God’s work elsewhere.

Have we as Christians chosen to silence the parts of Scripture that call for sacrifices on behalf of the vulnerable? Or do we speak and act out of our primary citizenship in the City of God, and work to make the City of Man honor its obligations?

Those are the questions people who oppose refugees being welcomed by this country need to answer. Give the whole a read. And let me just say that from my perspective Conservatives voicing opinions that suggest that letting refugees in our country is wrong; you are not thinking like a Christian and, consequently, your thinking is wrong and ultimately evil.

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Many Christian leaders pridefully refuse to publicly repent, so it’s always refreshing to hear of a pastor who is willing to admit when he is in the wrong. Such is the case with local pastor Ralph Atkinson, who issued a public statement Monday morning openly repenting of mentioning the biblical concept of repentance in his weekly messages and Bible studies.

According to Atkinson, he began to feel convicted of talking about repentance too much during his Tuesday night Bible study, as he suddenly realized that calling his people to repent of their sins just felt “super awkward.”

“It suddenly dawned on me: I needed to repent of talking about repentance so often,” a spiritually broken Atkinson told reporters, his head in his hands. “I am turning away from my old way of doing things and casting myself on God’s mercy, praying that that He will help me stop making people really uncomfortable by talking about repentance.”

Atkinson further stated he plans on “lightening up” when it comes to talking about sin, hell, death, and the Lordship of Christ.

“I only pray God will forgive me for being so faithful in past years,” he said, before adding, “God’s a God of new beginnings, and I know He’ll give me a fresh, repentance-free start.”

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Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses caught Europe by storm and initiated the Reformation, which fundamentally transformed both the church and society. Yet by Luther’s own estimation, his translation of the Bible into German was his crowning achievement.

The Bible played an absolutely vital role in the lives, theology, and practice of the Protestant Reformers. In addition, the proliferation and diffusion of vernacular Bibles—grounded in the original languages, enabled by advancements in printing, and lauded by the theological principles of sola Scriptura and the priesthood of all believers—contributed to an ever-widening circle of Bible readers and listeners among the people they served.

This collection of essays from the 2016 Wheaton Theology Conference—the 25th anniversary of the conference—brings together the reflections of church historians and theologians on the nature of the Bible as “the people’s book.” With care and insight, they explore the complex role of the Bible in the Reformation by considering matters of access, readership, and authority, as well as the Bible’s place in the worship context, issues of theological interpretation, and the role of Scripture in creating both division and unity within Christianity.

On the 500th anniversary of this significant event in the life of the church, these essays point not only to the crucial role of the Bible during the Reformation era but also its ongoing importance as “the people’s book” today.

Part II: Transmission and Worship
5. The Reformation as Media Event – Read Mercer Schuchardt
6. The Interplay of Catechesis and Liturgy in the Sixteenth Century: Examples from the Lutheran and Reformed Traditions – John D. Witvliet
7. Word and Sacrament: The Gordian Knot of Reformation Worship – Jennifer Powell McNutt

Part III: Protestant-Catholic Dialogue
8. John Calvin’s Commentary on the Council of Trent – Michael Horton
9. The Bible and the Italian Reformation – Christopher Castaldo
10. Reading the Reformers After Newman – Carl Trueman

Part IV: The People’s Book Yesterday and Today
11. From the Spirit to the Sovereign to Sapiential Reason: A Brief History of Sola Scriptura – Paul C. H. Lim
12. Perspicuity and the People’s Book – Mark Labberton

When people of the stature of JB say things like “This valuable collection of essays from an excellent group of scholars does a superb job of covering topics ranging from Latin Bibles to vernacular culture, perspicuity, and reading the Reformers after Newman. A great mix of historical and theological material and a pleasure to read.” —Jon Balserak

And Karin Maag says “Sola Scriptura, ‘Scripture alone’: these words still resonate over the centuries since the early 1500s. No single scholar can do justice to the complex history of the Bible and its impact in the Reformation era. Fortunately, Jennifer Powell McNutt and David Lauber have assembled a top-notch team to provide a rich feast of insights on the Bible in the Reformation era and beyond. From regional studies to carefully crafted reflections on the Bible and authority or worship, this book offers timely guidance for all who want to understand the roots of Protestant engagement with Scripture.” —Karin Maag

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Rick Steves narrates. I haven’t watched it yet so I can’t vouch for it. If it’s wrong, you’ll know it. He narrates travel shows so there’s no guarantee he knows anything about Luther or the Reformation.

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Few studies have addressed comprehensively the place of jesting in early modern pulpit rhetoric. This article documents some of the humour—jests and witty speech—in the period’s extant sermon literature. Specifically it identifies the analytical potential of revisiting an ancient, and early modern, idea: that the laughable is a kind of deformitas (deformity). A standard approach in studies of humour from the early modern period has been to identify ‘scorn’ as its centraI emotional category. However, with reference especially to the sermons of Hugh Latimer in the 1540s and Thomas Adams in the first decades of the seventeenth century, I shall argue that scorn for what is deemed ‘other’, and therefore ‘low’, does not exhaust the range of affective rhetoric achieved by jests against ‘deformities’ in sermons. Pulpit jesting also generates what are called here ‘self-referring’ laughable deformities, with much more complex affective purposes.